Posted on by Amanda Brooks

reactions

Since I often read things and want to comment but don’t, here are my comments. A lot of these links came from Tits and Sass since I no longer bother with my Google Alerts.

escort photo documentary

While the story is somewhat unique, the pictures of Eden working are completely recognizable to any touring hourly escort. Locales may differ, there may be a lack of cigarettes and wigs, but everything else is very, very true. Escort work really can be this boring and mundane. Just like stripping. Just like data entry. Just like anything.

Hong Kong escorts and review board exploitation

I remember Sex141.com when I went to HK. I was never on the site because it wasn’t a good fit for me. I was: too old, Western, English-speaker, outcall-only, had much higher rates than the local girls. I had no idea it developed into the terror it has. (TER is probably kicking itself for not figuring out the bad review scam Sex141 pulls.)

HK girls work in limbo. Sex work is partially decriminalized and partially illegal, depending on what, where and how. While the laws seem clearly defined on the surface, sex workers face almost as much police harassment as US sex workers. My firm belief is that anytime there is an illegal aspect to sex work, the workers will suffer. The public and police will exploit the illegal aspects as far as they can, nullifying any legality. This is why sex work has to be completely decriminalized across the board. No exceptions.

Because of this half-and-half system, they have no recourse against Sex141. Because of the market and the laws, the girls are regularly ripped off: unlike sex workers in the rest of the world, they’re afraid of getting the money upfront because the client will run away or call them a ripoff (I did not have that problem with the clients I had in HK — different market). They’re stuck with abusive clients and there is no legal recourse for them. After the murders in 2008, all the one-woman brothels had CCTVs installed and the images of bad clients are regularly printed out and circulated but there is no way to make sure every sex worker has that info. They have problems with clients every day, just like US sex workers.

This is not to say that the girls don’t want to work there because they do. It’s far safer than China and the money is better. The problem, as always, is illegality. The only solution, as always, is full decriminalization.

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Posted on by Amanda Brooks

hobbyists in the mist

Over the years, I’ve run into hobbyists online in non-escort settings. EBay, various message boards about real hobbies, non-escort blogs, dating sites and the like. It is proof that hobbyists do have something of an Internet life outside of posting on discussion/review boards. It’s also proof that an experienced escort can smell them through the computer screen long before they’ve made a complete ass of themselves.

It’s the grossly-entitled reek they emit that gives it away. They see women as inferior and expect that anything they say is gospel. They forget that the rest of the Internet is a free world and my livelihood doesn’t depend on catering to their flagging egos. I love to enrage them because it’s so easy. They never twig that I’m an escort and recognize what they are. They only know that I’m keeping the pussy away from them, not doing what they tell me to do, and not falling in love with them. For free, of course.

They lust after any semi-appealing female who crosses their radar, seeming to think that every woman will react with the same enthusiasm that working escorts do. They’re shocked when I tell them to fuck off (and it is so, so much fun to do this). I’ve even caught them attempting to rate and review me and other civilian women on whatever site. Why do they think women want to put up with this for free? Oh, right. Hobbyists.

Sometimes they’re even smart enough to not use the same handles on every board. Certainly not always. I’ve no doubt if I went searching for specific phrases I’d probably figure out their escort board handles pretty quickly but I’ve never had that much curiosity.

They find out that challenging me with money doesn’t work (like the out-of-state dating site guys who want to meet me and take me to dinner, but only with the guarantee of sex because they don’t want to waste money on me) and it blows their minds. They rage and whinge about how I set my boundaries during whatever short bout of contact we have online. I find their other online profiles (“travel dating” sites are now popular) with pictures and hilarious self-description, I pass the links around for others to laugh at. In my experience, real clients rarely leave such an Internet trail of stupidity. Hobbyists usually do, spreading all over the Net like a viral outbreak. The stupider they are, the better. They readily oblige.

The most fun is getting to act offended and enraged at every little sexist thing that they write, threaten to have them reported and/or banned from the site, get to tell them where and how to get off (certainly not with me), etc. They have no idea where I’m coming from, and they discover they really can’t do anything to me. They have no power over me. I’m just some random chick, probably a Nazi-feminist, who thinks all men are sexually harassing her, and causing a big stink about their attitudes. They go in search of easier prey. I’m sure I’m responsible for some of the beliefs among hobbyists that American women are emasculating men. (Don’t be so easily emasculated, is my response.)

Oddly enough, I’ve yet to personally interact with an online male jerk who wasn’t a hidden hobbyist. I’ve sometimes been able to sniff out a client (though none of mine) and they behave themselves. I’ve interacted with quite a few civilian men and they behave themselves, more or less, within a range of normal male behavior. The outright, miserable assholes are always hobbyists. Always. I think it’s because hobbyists are MRAs who admit to paying for it.

I would love to tell hobbyists to behave themselves when interacting with women who don’t care about earning a “10” from them, but then, I doubt any of those read this blog. Nor would they get it. Or care.